Category Archives: The Turning

This is an ongoing serial from Jon, onehumanbeing about time, being human, bipolar disorder, god(s), creation, history, Mayan calenders, astrology, space, the sub-conscious mind, quantum physics, American Christianity and the coming Long Cycle – among other things…

Here’s a sketch I did last night in my notebook, thinking about my story and allowing the picture of myself as the two-headed dragon I’ve been writing about to pour out of my pen on to the paper.

You can see the left head (our right) seems to be very delighted with these new wings. The new wings have been perplexing and filled with mystery at this point.

Today I scanned the sketch into the computer and added color to fit the colors I see in the minds eye – a blue two-headed dragon with red on his skulls and yellows, browns and oranges in his plumes or dreads.

The wings are yellow in this drawing, but really they’re more translucent resembling light beams through a foggy mist – and they ripple a bit like fog… you might not see them if you didn’t know they were there.

We’ve had amazing amounts of wind the last few days, and when I’m out walking my dogs it’s as if I can feel the wings wanting to unfurl completely and go dance with the winds… it made me laugh with a funny kind of joy.

I’ve been spending the last few days putting together a project site for The Turning, which is now open and ready for use… you can visit it here: http://theturning.onehumanbeing.com/ (site no longer available)

On the new site you’ll find the story has been organized to make it easier to follow.

I have also moved STEW, an allegorical story about the 2008 election, over to The Turning site, where these two story will soon be merged into one…

What Is The Turning?

This is serial – a story that will unfold over a seven year period of time – which tells the story of a mythical and imaginative journey taken by Jon, onehumanbeing that blends fiction and non-fiction as it explores ideas about time, being human, bipolar disorder, god(s), creation, history, Mayan calenders, astrology, space, the sub-conscious mind, quantum physics, American Christianity and the coming Long Cycle – among other things.

But most of the time this story is more about the questions it stirs up in you than anything else…

What Is A Project Site?

As an artist I’m always at work on more than one thing at a time. For example, when I’m painting I usually have about 5 paintings going at once – all in various stages of completion.

Currently, much of my work is done on very large scales. As an example – The MMJ Project, which uses my local city and community as the studio and working space for my various activities involving Medical Marijuana and the long struggle to get it established and normalized.

To keep my various projects, and the different materials, concepts, and campaigns from getting lost in a confusing mass of stuff, I started to start creating “project sites” for each project idea – sort of like spin-offs from TV shows – and this gives each project it’s own home.

By using this “multiple project sites” approach, I find as my focus shifts over time I can move from one project site to the next, adding new material, making changes, adjusting the project to keep it on track, and whatever else needs to be done at that time.

Then, after a while, a shift or a change comes over me and I’m onto the next project – and around and around it goes…

I hope that helps you understand the process going on here at onehumanbeing.com

The Return of The Plumed Serpent

So many different stories, myths, legends, and names: Kukulkan, Ququmatz, Quetzalcoatl, The Plumed Serpent, The Precious Twin, The Giver of Calenders, The Bearded White Man, The Keeper of Wisdom, Intelligence and Self-Reflection, Thoth of Egypt and some would even claim – Jesus Christ.

In every story he’s a benevolent Man-God of love and compassion, who left us but said he would return someday.

Some Mormon scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl, as a white, bearded God who came from the sky and promised to return, was actually Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American natives after his resurrection.

“The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior’s life and ministry.”

I find it to be more than curious that so many cultures over the course of human history have encountered this strange, benevolent Man-God – and that his return has been prophesied over and over again.

For the Maya, Kukulkan holds a place of special reverence – when he first came he gave them their calenders and taught them to stop the practice of human sacrifice, among other things. One day, when his appointed time had come, he left by the sea, but promised he would return again someday.

I have a few questions for those with ears to hear:

Do you have oil in your lamp?

Do you hear the sounds of the Great Procession?

Come listen, for a Great Kingdom is coming near the Home of Man…

Behold, I hear the sound of a great feast approaching – I see a great city, and it is coming like a wonder in the clouds, a Light above lights, a Glory greater than all the glory of the Earth.

A change? A shaking? A sorting of the sheep and the goats? Many strange days are ahead, but do not fear, the battle has already been fought and mankind has a champion, a brother who has already gone this way many times before – and like he promised, he will return for the day that has been appointed.

But get yourself ready, because we won’t be going this way again – not in this lifetime anyway. I just thought you should know…

This Has Been A Message from Ho Ik – The Wind of Hermes and Mercury,just one of the forward-looking service provided by onehumanbeing.com

PS. If all of this story has seemed veiled, strange or mysterious so far, that’s alright, because it has to be for now.

If this was a road-trip I’d probably tell you to relax and settle in – we have a long road ahead of us, but we have an early enough start so you won’t miss anything.

Soon the 6th night will be upon us, and the hard, winter cold… then I will be able to tell you long stories around the fire while we sip on cups of hot coffee – then I will tell you about The Books of Days…

This is The Turning – A Serial: A story about time, being human, bipolar disorder, god(s), creation, history, Mayan calenders, astrology, space, the sub-conscious mind, quantum physics, American Christianity and the coming Long Cycle – among other things…

Beginnings… 1 Imix and 9-9-9

Today begins the new Tzolkin round – The Mayan Sacred Calender of 260 days. The round that just finished yesterday started on Dec 23, 2008.

Today – 1 Imix – is a perfect day for new beginnings and new projects… Have a happy evolution 🙂

and also…

President Obama picked the perfect day to launch his health care plan… 1 Imix during a Mercury Retrograde – like using a high powered slingshot. Great speech!

and now I’d like to share a few of my own ideas, a story and some thoughts about the Mayan Calender and point you to a few places to read more about it yourself.

Evolution is happening right now.

Before we begin I must point out that some things are true whether you believe them or not.

As our planet spins through the great cosmos, what do you think is going on? Just a ball of rock, gas and organic life forms spinning pointlessly through space, or do you feel like something more might be happening?

Well, something is happening, and has been for a long time – we are becoming human.

This process of forming humans has taken place using an organizational process known as time. Time is an organizer, and helps regulate the flow of evolution. This is something that the Maya understood.

They understood that their culture would grow and flourish like all things in nature, they knew that they would flower, bear seeds for the future and then pass away. Their calenders told them exactly when it would happen – and it did – to the day.

The calenders that had been given to them explained the cycle of things, and that we repeat our histories over and over in this long process of human evolution.

Birth, growth, flowering, seeds and then death, decay and feeding the next generation. Every natural process since the Big Bang has worked that way, I’d imagine that it worked that way before the Big Bang.

By moving from one generation to the next, growing as communities, and passing on knowledge our species has once again risen, become poised for the next leap in our growth, our evolution – if you choose it.

The Days of Creation – A Little Story

Long before our days, there was another place where there was nothing – well, occasionally there would be something, but it would quickly blink out again… and in this place existed The Almighty – The Only Uncreated One – The Holy One.

It came about that The Almighty, whose very core beat with the original pulse of love, chose to create a universe that would be an expression of His love and be a place to fill with beings that would be an expression of this eternal love.

But first He created an offspring, a Son to share His universe with. Then He created a place for His work benches, chairs, books and charts and He called this place the Heavens. Then He created a blank canvas, and He called this place Creation, so that everything He worked out in the Heavens would take place in His Creation.

The Almighty made many preparations with His Son for this expression of love. He created amazing beings with powers and responsibilities that would seem godlike to us, and they ruled the forces of Creation in order and harmony.

In the Heavens He constructed great calenders for the godlike beings, all rotating in unison, all moving each of the beings to their appointed places as the wheels rotated through the Intentions – the thirteen tones of creation that pulse – Night, Day, Night, Day, Night, Day, Night, Day, Night, Day, Night, Day, Rest Day – 6 Nights and 7 Days, and then around again.

He placed each of the beings in their own calenders and then placed them inside His creation to give His Creation many cycles of time to grow and evolve life.

Billions of years passed as the materials of The Almighty’s great creation spun into a massive universe of innumerable clusters of gas, dust, debris, organic materials, stars being born burning fast and hard, then massive explosions that blasted out new kinds of materials that created the stage for the next evolution of the universe…

It was around this time that The Almighty lit our Sun with the famous phrase “Let there be light.”

For what happened next, see The Book of Genesis, Chapter One, verse 4.

Learning The Tzolkin – The Count of Days

Before last Fall I knew nothing about the Tzolkin, Mayan civilization and traditions, Mayan calenders and cosmology or any of the others things I’ve learned about time as cycles that I know now. Since then I’ve been learning to follow the Tzolkin like a map.

During this last year I’ve looked for landmarks in the events of the days to judge the accuracy of my map. Over a very short period of time I found that this map works quite well once you learn to read it… and as I learned to read it better and better, I’m starting to build a new way of seeing the world around me.

Here’s some basics to get you started from one of the first sources I found during my early learning period…

What is The Tzolkin (pronounced – zohl keen)

The Tzolkin or Count of Days is a 260-day Sacred Calendar cycle developed by the Maya approximately 2500 years ago…

Each combination of the Number and Day Glyph repeats every 260 days. This creates a matrix pattern of 7 “Days” and 6 “Nights” (13 columns of the Tzolkin). Each Day and Night is composed of a 20-day Uinal [pronounced “We in All” – editor] cycle (13 x 20). Other patterns are also overlaid on the initial framework of the Tzolkin (65 x 4, 52 x 5, 130 x 2, etc.). The Maya considered the Tzolkin a Sacred Calendar. It wasn’t based on the measure of the movement of the Earth around the Sun but rather the unique Sacred Energy created by each combination of Number and Day Glyph. These 260 combinations are also believed to reflect unique human characteristics and traits. To the Maya, their Tzolkin Day Sign –or the day in the 260-day cycle on which they were born– determined personal characteristics, spiritual destiny and sometimes even their name.

Certain numbers, including 13 and 20, were considered Magical and Sacred by the Maya. The Number 13 represented the number of levels or Heavens in the Upperworld where certain Lords or Gods ruled. There are also 13 major joints in the body. The Maya used a 20-base counting system believed to have originated from the total number of human fingers and toes. Another theory is that 260 days reflected the human gestation period. Perhaps the Maya felt that 13 and 20 symbolized the connection between heaven and humanity.

The Tzolkin Count of Days was only one of many different calendars that the Maya developed as master astronomers and mathematicians. Their calendars were multi- level counts tracking precise movements of galactic astronomical cycles. While these other calendars track Ordinary Time (linear), the Tzolkin has the distinction of tracking Sacred Time. Sacred Time is defined as the moment of awareness that can be enhanced or extended by following the river of energy consistent with the energies present on that day. Maya Daykeepers and Shamans compared this measure and movement of Sacred Energy to a river flowing past their doorstep. We know that they used this Sacred Calendar for rituals, divination and personal astrology. When a Shaman performed a ceremony or ritual, he entered Sacred Time.

All of the foregoing theories may just scratch the surface. Because of the multi-levels of the Tzolkin, many of these theories may apply simultaneously. Regardless of the origin of the Tzolkin, the Maya clearly used it to distinguish between Sacred Time and Ordinary Time.

The Dream of the Two-Headed Dragon

I remember the comfort… spread out like a blanket in the quiet dreams, and rest, and wisdom, and communion, everywhere, nowhere – the only existence.

I remember when I was the universe, before the journey that crossed your path – when all of time was one instant, one symphony.

It was you that woke me, it was your story that called me across the ages. You were my gravity. You were my reason to wake…

Your story came to me on a wave, on a memory, on the resonating notes of a string pluck so long ago… A string that resonated and hummed to life sending out ripples and waves, that sent out a song that woke all the strings within me that had gone quiet… and they started to hum with your song.

I had told you long ago we would never be apart, and at the edge of never, your song, your gravity called me back...

The Building Blocks of Life

There are many people that can tell you how the world is seen and known, but this story is about the unseen and the unknown and the pieces that have come together to form the small symphony of waves, sounds, connections, systems, worlds and galaxies that move around with me.

What is a human being? I wonder if we even know…

Biologically, I’m a union of billions of individual cells that form a manifestation of personal intelligence which creates what you see as my body.

My body is really borrowed organic material that will someday return to the stream of earth life, while life, the person I know as myself, will grow and evolve into… what?

The organic material that feeds my little personal galaxy was created from the death of stars, the death of plants, the death of billions of organic creatures that came before me. I was formed in the womb of death and destruction and it has given birth to life and creation.

But this story of life is not about the natural cycle of organic life and death, but about the life which is something more, something much bigger.

Life is not something you can own – it’s a story that has been given to you, it is your sparking moment to be born, your moment in eternity to come alive, to form as a soul, to become a flame that burns on and on.

From the moment of my birth the chains of civilization were wrapped around me. I was stamped with the mark. With punishments and rewards I learned to ignore the nourishment of my soul and to cage it in a box of fears and anxieties. Unless I wore the mark and conformed to the civilization I was born into, I could not earn my daily bread and water needed to continue my organic life.

Everyone of us is born a slave into the world system, and none can escape it unless their spark becomes a flame, unless they become a soul that is alive, unless they sacrifice their organic life for that something “other” – that other kind of life.

How Did I Get Here?

Do you wonder if your time here is a accident of the great cosmic comedy?

Did you know it took years of genetic work, generations actually, to create you?

Has anyone told you that your time was appointed; as were your talents, skills, hungers, desires, strengths and weaknesses, so that you could accomplish the dream inside you?

Has anyone told you that the dream you keep burying inside yourself is your spark and the voice of the story that has been given you, and what’s going on around you is mostly illusions and distractions?

Helter Skelter – or – Riding The Bipolar Coaster

When I was very young I used to dream of being able to ride endlessly on a roller coaster. I loved roller coasters, the ups and downs and all the funny ways it made my body feel. I felt alive on a roller coaster.

I would imagine in my dream that I had won some kind of prize that allowed me to ride the roller coaster over and over again, just waved on through each time the ride came to an end and back out onto the track, around and around, up and down, up and down.

Now, at age 45, and after 10 years of battling the symptoms of bipolar disorder with endless pharmaceutical drugs, I wonder if the dream I had as a child was a glimpse into my future, the place I am now. Now I ride a bipolar coaster, like I’m strapped in and I can’t get off of this ride – it never stops – I just go round and round again.

At age five it was a dream that has become twisted over the last forty years into an illness… a mental illness. Is it a prize and a dream or is it a mental illness? Have I been missing out on something amazing about myself or am I really just broken machinery?

Reheating The STEW

It’s been nearly ten months since the election of Barack Obama in November of 2008. At the time of the election I was writing a series of pieces comparing the election to the story of the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles – I called this series STEW.

Like most everyone else who voted for Obama, I was in a state of amazement as I watched his acceptance speech on the night of the election (you can read about my reaction in my STEW election-break posting called “STEW: Part Three – Welcome to the WE generation” ) and ended up pausing the series while I worked on other things.

After a long break, we continue the story…

The story of these two brothers begins in The Book of Genesis, chapter 25, and today we pick up the story in verse 25 and continues until verse 34…

The Twins – Jacob and Esau

The Book of Genesis tells us about the Patriarchs of the Hebrews – the first three males of a divinely chosen people and a line of blessing that will culminate in God’s Eternal Kingdom with His Messiah on the Eternal Throne – and it starts with three generations of one human family; beginning with Abraham – the Father of Faith, his son, Isaac – The Child of Promise and then Jacob, who became Israel, the Father of the Twelve Tribes.

Now Jacob, the third of The Patriarchs, was born with a twin named Esau. [You can find the story in Genesis 25:21-28] and they wrestled violently in the womb causing their mother, Rebekah (played by Madonna in a previous episode) great distress and pain during her pregnancy.

When she inquired of The Lord why her pregnancy was going so bad The Lord told her:

“Two nations are in your womb;
And two people shall be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”

When she gave birth, indeed she had twins – the first child to be born was Esau, who was already covered with red hair, followed by Jacob, holding onto the heel of his twin Esau.

It’s important to note that there is a tradition that believes that Esau was so restless in the womb that he was literally trying to fight his way out of Rebekah and if Jacob hadn’t held him back Esau would have killed his mother in an effort to be born early, and that is why the struggle in the womb and why Esau came out first with Jacob holding his heel.

This tradition could also explain why Jacob was his mother’s favorite son.

Esau grew up to be a hunter and outdoors-man, was a very hairy man and dreamed of moving to Alaska; while Jacob grew up a peaceful, smooth-skinned man and dreamed of going to Washington DC.

Now, in those days and according to their customs, the first-born male got the entire inheritance – everything – land, animals, money, servants… and in this family it also came with the Divine Blessing that Abraham had first received for El Shaddai, The Almighty God. In this case, that meant that Esau, by birthright, was entitled to the complete inheritance when Isaac died.

Jacob understood this very well, and Esau really couldn’t care less…

One day Esau (played by John McCain, poor, sold-out John McCain) came back from hunting and smelled something delicious cooking. Following his nose he found his brother Jacob cooking a pot of red lentil stew. “I’m starving, let me have a swallow of that red stuff…” he told his brother, and Jacob, not being in a giving mood, said, “Sell me your birthright first.”

Esau, letting his appetite overcome his good sense, figures that a birthright is worthless to a dead man, and agrees.

After making Esau swear an oath, Jacob served him some stew and bread, which Esau ate quickly and then went on his way.

Little did Esau know that El Shaddai, who watches over everyone, saw what Esau had done and heard the oath Esau made, and knew that Esau despised his birthright, and had also despised The Almighty God.

The Turning | June 2008 – June 2015

The Beginning…

It was just a thought that hit me last June, middle of the afternoon, and I jotted it down on a scrap of paper, and went on with my day – The Turning – 7 Years – 6/2008 – 6/2015…

I didn’t give it another thought for a few days, until I came across the scrap of paper with my note. It seemed liked an ominous, or important sounding event, and I had no idea at that point what kind of a whirlpool I was being pulled into…

To some people it might seem strange to follow a strange thought, an “out-of-the-blue” kind of thought, but I’m used to these kinds of thoughts or impressions – they have their own particular resonance, like intelligence riding in a wave length being picked up my a human receiver. I write them down, and I’ve been writing them down for years.

I think I’ve always been tuned to these frequencies or waves, and ever since I was fifteen my receiver has been tuned finer and finer, and now I hear the words being sent rather than just having to rely on guesses made from impressions and misunderstood visions that are part of the language of the unconscious.

My world is a world just like yours, and our paths may cross every day, but I see things you don’t and have heard things you can not hear because I live in this world and another.

It took me a long time to understand how different the worlds are – for a long time I thought they were one world, but now I understand that I just see more than most people, and certainly not as much as others see… I call this world “The Natural Super-Natural”…

Introducing The Wind…

My way of moving through the world can best be described as being like the wind.

Here’s a poem I wrote back in January of 1999 called “I Am The Wind” that illustrates what I mean:

I am the wind
and the Lord trains me like the wind
with pressures high and low
to guide me on the way

The wind carries the weather
that guides our every day
and though no one sees it
everyone feels it,
and sees it’s effects everywhere

The clouds and rains are carried by the wind
out of the desert and from the north,
down every street
and across every path,
through cracks in windows,
and under every door,
and like the poet says
“you don’t need a weatherman
to tell you which way the wind blows”

Blowing hot like fire or cold as ice
the same wind blows
when it is sent

The wind strengthen the plants
and gives music to our chimes
and all is the work
of the mighty Hand of God

The Lord walks on the wings of the wind
a whisper on it’s breath
We rejoice as it lifts our kites
though it brings terrors in the night

A breeze, a gust, a north wind
a hurricane, a tornado…
Gentle and awesome might
in the Hand of the Almighty
No one can stand before the wind

January 9, 1999

I wrote that over ten years ago, a long time before I learned last October that my Mayan day sign on their sacred calendar is The Wind – a Tone 5 Wind or the North Wind, known Ho Ik – The Empowering Wind – on this ancient calendar called The Tzolkin.

The Tzolkin is divided into 20 day signs of 13 tones each that create a cycle of twenty different 13 day “weeks” called Trecenas. The tones and the day signs roll endlessly together like a wheel inside a wheel.

The complete cycle takes 260 days, and is about the same length as the gestation period. Simply put, the Maya believe that each of us is one of 260 pieces of the sun, and when we are born or come through the water we are marked by the sun, giving each of us basic identity that marks our path for us.

A part of our journey in life is to find harmony with the other 259 pieces of the sun.

Finding out my day sign was ‘The Wind” sent a shock-wave of reflection through me that I’m still feeling today – about nine months later – because it was a completely accurate description of myself.

My birth date is June 18, 1964 and I was born shortly after two in the afternoon in Glendale, California at the second hospital my mother had to go to in order for me to be born, and here I entered this world in the Zodiac sign of Gemini, The Twins, in the Chinese Year of The Dragon.

In ancient China the dragons are considered the winds and the bringers of rain. In the Zodiac, Gemini, the Twins, are guided by Mercury and are considered the messengers of the gods, and the messengers of the gods ride on the wind…

If you were to see me in a certain way, you would see a blue, two-headed dragon (more on the two-headed part later) that rides the storms and delivers the messages of heaven – but very few can see that way… most people see the collections of cells that contain my consciousness, my physical body, and think that’s me, Jon.

It is and it isn’t, and where the line between the worlds exists is one of the mystery I explore…

In a way, I can see myself as a consciousness or a collective-consciousness that acts as care-taker over a massive super-organism of cells that are all individuals in their own right. It’s as if my body were a galaxy and my awareness was the collective-consciousness of all the billions of individual parts. Out of many, one – onehumanbeing.

Next – Chapter One – Helter Skelter

Note: The Turning is an ongoing work of fiction, growing organically, from now till 2015, and may be changed or edited further…

Here’s the graphic I posted the day we voted, November 4th, 2008, as I was in the midst of writing my “STEW” story based on Esau and Jacob as a metaphor of the Obama/McCain situation, and as the story is told – you can read it starting in Genesis 25 – Jacob gets everything, and Obama, being Jacob in this story, gets everything.

For 8 months I’ve been waiting for today to continue the story, but I had to wait for the Coleman/Franken court battle to end. Congratulation to Senator-Elect Al Franken of Minnesota. Indeed – Jacob got everything. So now we’re back on the Biblical narrative (actually we never left it – the last 8 months of Republican melt down are recorded in Genesis 27:41 – 28:9)

Coming up in the story – Jacob returns to his ancestors home, The Night and the Dream of God and Angels (I have a whole bunch of UFOs ready for this episode) and soon, Jacob’s Struggles…

My friends, we live in most unusual times, be both glad and mourn, for the times, they are a changin’…

I cry for my brother Esau and the lot he has chosen, but I’m leaving with Jacob and heading into the night…

Welcome To The WE Generation…

It is late in the evening of November 5, 2008 and I am amazed at what I’m watching, feeling and seeing coming to pass… it’s like watching as the world begin to turn, but it only seems that way because of the long night and the early fingers of light that are just beginning to shoot across the horizon.

Today I thought back about 6 or so years ago when I worked at the Gazette Newspapers in Long Beach, and we had an office manager named Kenya.

Kenya has a white father and black mother, kind-of-like Barack, and we would talk about the black/white thing once in a while.

One morning when I was talking to her about this issue I said, “You know Kenya, the world is upside down…The last shall be first, and a change will come…”

Why do I believe this?

Because I am a child of 1964, and after 1964, everything changed… I grew up believing Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

Because both of my parents were from Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln has been a hero of my since childhood.

He had a dream, and Martin had a dream, and they became my dream, and on January 20, 2009 the two come together in what WE have chosen to dream together – Change we can believe in…

In the night, unless you are awake and watching the sky, the light goes out and artificial light takes over until we sleep and dream. Everything looks different in artificial light. We hide from monsters, and jump when the wind blows against the house…

We have tried to comfort ourselves from the fear with myths and legends to protect us while we sleep, looking for clues that when morning comes everything will be alright, that our flag will still wave.

Welcome to dawns early light…

Tell me, can you see?

The flag does still wave and the blessing goes on. The new day does come and the torch of the night is passed, because we have one more night still to travel through, but that’s when a ladder comes down from heaven, and the glory of El-Shaddai will fill the Earth…

But before then, the light of day is about to burst around you, and what looked so strange in the night will look very different in the light of day.

That all aside, I can not tell you how much I am crying inside for the children of Esau…

It reminds me of a couple of years ago when The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup…

The only sport I watch is hockey, which is strange for a Southern California native. People usually ask me if I’m from Canada when I start talking hockey – and I can talk hockey!

But what it means being a hockey fan in California is the reality that your team will never, I repeat, NEVER, win the big prize. NEVER…

Oh the seasons I endured as a young Kings fans. I listened to every game on the radio during the gold and purple days of the 70’s.

I had a poster on my wall of Rogie Vachon, the starting goaltender for the Kings back then, who I would sketch over and over again (that’s how young artists work out their angst)… later when I got a parakeet I named him Marcel, bad parakeet name, but the scoring wonder of that moment, Marcel Doinne.

Well, The Kings and hockey lost me during the 80’s and it wasn’t until The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim started in the early 90’s expansion that I came back. And what a grueling journey it was…

I was a fan of the team owned by Disney – a strange marriage at the least.

A team is the roughest sport, with fights, injuries, real blood and everything nasty married to Cinderella, American Family Style. Not to mention being named after a movie franchise… we live in a strange world.

And then one day it changed…

A great couple who really like hockey and wanted to do what’s right by the team bought them, changed the name to the Anaheim Ducks, hired real talent for the front office that brought great talent to the ice, changed the image of the team, and within a couple of years I was breathing air that feels a lot like today… almost.

When the Ducks won the Stanley Cup it was like I was in a nitrous oxide bubble of happy gas for a week. I had never been on the winning side before, cheering for the winning team!

Asking me to do anything was out of the question… I just lingered and breathed in and out… mmmmm….

Not so with the air today… it tastes as sweet, but I’ve got some empty beer bottles on the table, dishes left in the sink, a carpet to vacuum and many other household chores to do… and breathing this air just makes me feel like getting to the work at hand.

I’ll write more later, dish out some more STEW, but first there is work to do…

Introduction to Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of an election time allegorical story called STEW, or, How Esau Lost The 2008 Election.

And now for something completely different…

Today we have a semi-epic Biblical drama, Journey to Mesopotamia, to add more ingredients to this stew, and to help us understand the background of our story…

I imagined this drama in what I call “Star-Wars-o-Vision”, an epic and lush George Lucas-esque styling – available in wide screen HD for those of you with a great visual imagination.

Keep in mind all the allegorical imagery from Part One as we move ahead… all the pieces will add up as the story moves along.

Plagiarism Disclaimer: The following story is mostly lifted from Genesis 24:13-67 using the American Standard Version, the New American Standard Version and a few modifications of my own…

A Note on Hebrew Names for God:

Elohim is a Hebrew word for God which means: gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural) of the supreme God.

Jehovah is another of the Hebrew word for God which means: self existent or eternal; Jehovah, Jewish national name of God as in, Jehovah, the Lord.

Source – Strong‘s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary.

Journey to Mesopotamia

Scene I: The Oath

Setting: Widescreen view out over a vast desert landscape, bleak, but colorized a bit with some deeper colors to give it the “settling in to an epic story” feel. As the camera scans the desert a great settlement of tents, people and herds comes into view in the valley below… the camera shifts to inside of Abraham’s tent, decorated in early “Raiders of the Lost Ark” style…

Casting notes: Abraham is play by Jack Nicholson in this scene and his servant is played by Morgan Freeman, who is also the narrator, like in “The Shawshank Redemption“…

Abraham’s Servant: Our story begins after Abraham has mourned the death of his beloved wife Sarah…

In that day Abraham was old and advanced in age, and Jehovah had blessed Abraham in every way, but he could see his son Isaac was still heartsick because of his mother’s death.

One day Abraham called me into his tent, because I was his oldest and most trusted servant, and he made me swear an oath

Abraham: I will make you swear by El-Shaddai, the Elohim of heaven and the Elohim of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the Daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you shall go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac.

Abraham’s Servant: Suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land where you came from?

Abraham [exploding]: Beware lest you take my son back there! El Shaddai, the Elohim of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and the land of my birth, and who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there.

But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there.

Abraham’s Servant: So I made an oath with Abraham concerning this matter. He gave me ten camels loaded with a variety of good things and special gifts he gave into my hand, and I left for Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, the snoring father of civilization, back to the land that my master Abraham had left so long ago.

Scene II: The Well at Nahor

Setting: another view out over a vast desert landscape… the camera moves towards the caravan of ten camels that is coming to a stop at a desert well of water, it is late afternoon…

Abraham’s Servant: When I approached the city of Nahor, and came to the well where the women came to draw the evening water, I made the camels knee down and I dismounted.

I looked around me and made a request to the Jehovah, the Elohim of my master, Abraham.

Abraham’s Servant [inner voice – prayerfully spoken]:

O Jehovah, the Elohim of my master Abraham, send me, I pray thee, success this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham.Behold, I am standing by the fountain of water.

The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water, so let it come to pass, that the girl to whom I shall say, ‘Let down thy pitcher, please, that I may drink.’

And she shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also.’

May she be the one whom thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac. And thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master.

Abraham’s Servant continues: While I was still addressing Jehovah I saw coming towards me a beautiful maiden who I later found out was Rebekah who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her jar upon her shoulder.

Note on Rebekah’s name: could be translated from the Hebrew as “The clog, the fettering beauty born to the son who was destroyed by God, born of the queen to the snoring brother of Abraham” or something like that…see Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary.

Abraham’s Servant continues: This girl was very beautiful to look at, a virgin, who had not yet been touched for the very first time. She went down to the fountain, and filled her jar, and came up again…

Abraham’s Servant [running to meet Rebekah]:Give me to drink, please, a little water from your jar.

Rebekah [lowering her jar to her hand, and giving Abraham’s servant a drink]: Drink.

Rebekah [after Abraham’s servant finishes drinking]: I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.

[Rebekah quickly emptied her pitcher into the watering trough, and runs back the well to draw more water, and continued until all the camels had been satisfied.]

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: All the while I watched her, holding my peace, to know whether Jehovah had made my journey successful or not…

When the camels had finished drinking, I knew in my heart she was the one so I gave her a golden ring for her nose, and ten bracelets for her hands.

Abraham’s Servant [speaking to Rebekah]: Whose daughter are you and is there room in your father’s house for myself, my camels and my men to spend the night?

Rebekah: I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor. We have both straw and feed for your camels, and plenty of room for your men.

Abraham’s Servant [bowing his head – praying]: Blessed be Jehovah, the Elohim of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving-kindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, Jehovah has led me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.

Scene III: Mesopotamian Material Girl

Setting: Large settlement with many people carrying on with the daily activities of Mesopotamian people about 3,500 years ago… the camera follows Abraham’s servant (Morgan Freeman) and Rebekah (early Madonna, “Like A Virgin” era) from the well to the house of Laban, the Mesopotamian – Rebekah’s brother (played by Rupert Murdoch in this scene)

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: I waited as Rebekah ran off to tell her mother’s household.

Now Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban. Soon I saw Laban hurrying out to meet me by the well, because he had seen the gifts I had given Rebekah and had heard her story.

Laban: Don’t just stand there, come blessed of Jehovah… I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: So I went with Laban to his house where he unloaded the camels, gave them straw and feed and provided water to wash my feet and the feet of the men that were with me.

After this food was set before us to to eat…

Abraham’s Servant [speaking to Laban]: I will not eat, until I have told my business.

Laban: Speak.

Abraham’s Servant: I am Abraham’s servant, and Jehovah has blessed my master greatly. He has become great and Jehovah has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, many servant, and camels and asses.

Now Sarah, my master’s wife, has bore a son to my master in her old-age, and my master has given his son all he has.

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: I continued to tell him about my oath to Abraham, my request to Jehovah and my meeting with Rebekah by the well…

Abraham’s Servant [continuing to speak to Laban]: If you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me so. And if not, let me know, so that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left.

Laban (with Bethuel at his side): The matter comes from Jehovah, and is not ours to decide whether this is good or bad.

Behold, Rebekah is before you, take her, and go, and let her be your master’s son’s wife, as Jehovah has spoken.

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: And it came to pass, that, when I heard their words, I bowed down to the earth and worshiped Jehovah.

After this I brought out jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah. I also gave to her brother and to her mother precious things. Then we ate and drank until the morning.

Scene IV: Blessing Our Sister Rebekah

Setting: Same as Scene III, only now it’s the morning after…

Abraham’s Servant [speaking to Laban]: Send me away to my master.

Laban: Let the girl stay with us a few days, at the least ten. After that she can go…

Abraham’s Servant: Do not delay me, seeing Jehovah has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.

Laban: We will call the girl, and ask her.

[Rebekah enters the room]

Laban [speaking to Rebekah]: Will you go with this man?

Rebekah: I will go.

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: And so they sent back to my master Abraham with Rebekah, their sister, with this blessing:

The Voices of Rebekah’s Kin [5 to 6 voices all speaking together]: May you, our sister, become the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gate of those that hate them.

Scene V: Back To Canaan

Setting: another view out over a vast desert landscape… the camera moves towards a caravan of many camels, it is late afternoon…

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: Rebekah arose, along with her maids, and they rode upon their camels, following me as I returned to my master Abraham and his son, Isaac.

Isaac lived in the Negev, or the south, along the way of Beer-lahai-roi (which means: the well of a living seer).

While Isaac was meditating in the field one evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.

Meanwhile, Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel.

Rebekah [speaking to Abraham’s servant]: What man is this that walk in the field to meet us?

Abraham’s Servant: It is my master.

[Rebekah takes her veil, and covers herself. Isaac enters the scene]

Abraham’s Servant [narrating]: When Issac met us, I told him all the things that I had done.

After this, Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and she became his wife and he loved her.

With this, Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

End: Credits Start To Roll…

I hope you enjoyed my Bible story for today… I’ll have Professor Yarnhead here later to help explain some of the allegorical clues from this story.

Note: I was up late on the Monday writing and rewriting and rewriting this piece. I think I caught all my typos… let me know if you find anything I missed.

The Twins Story (the birth of Esau and Jacob) has been rescheduled for Tuesday, Election Day…

Also coming up on the 4th… Greed Stew for Esau and Blind Stew for Isaac.

Introduction

I am going to try and share a story I haven’t entirely figured out how to piece together yet, but will play out over the next few days…

I’ve watched it over and over in my head this last week… little pieces, little scenes, the same story, different play, same subject, different players….

It’s as if I’ve been watching T.V. – switching from channel to channel, but even as the program changes, the subject is always the same. Esau and Jacob, the 2008 Presidential race and the future…

It’s a story that moves and changes like a dream; like an episode of Monty Pythons Flying Circus or a History Channel documentary, loosely spliced and wandering from free association to free association like a drunken bee in a flower garden.

The Ingredients

STEW: This is a word with several meanings, from (1) cooking food by simmering or low boil to (2) fussing and fretting to (3) suffering the consequences of one’s own actions.

Beginning with the first meaning, let’s see how we go about making this particular stew.

The broth of this stew is “based on a true story” because I’ve lifted it completely from the story of Esau and Jacob in the Bible.

Notes for those following along at home:You can find this story in any standard issue Bible in the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, ranging from chapters 24 through 27 with extra bonus reading about Esau in Hebrews, chapter 12. Hebrews is one of the books of the New Testament, near the back of the Bible.

More on the broth in a moment, but first…

The STEW Who’s Who

The main ingredients of the story consists of four people…

Esau: The older twin, the big brother, hunter, “man of the fields”, and a rough, hairy man – he’s dad’s favorite. He’s the one who should inherit it all.

He symbolizes the Republicans, the Neocons, the sold-out conservatives hanging on because of sheer loyalty, and, most importantly, “The Religious Right” with a special bonus extra credit shout out to “right wing Christians”, and Christians that call themselves “value voters”…

Esau’s nickname is “Red” and is played by John “Red” McCain.

Jacob: The younger twin. Smooth skinned and a “tent-dweller.” He’s mother’s favorite, ambitious, knows what’s at stake and knows how to get it.

He symbolizes the Democrats, but also symbolizes the future transformation of the USA.

His nickname is “Smooth” and played by Barack “Smooth” Obama.

Isaac: The Second Patriarch in a blessed line of Patriarchs. The Son of Promise that is now an old man going blind and foreseeing his own demise.

He symbolizes the good old US of A. You and me, the vast historical, mythological, cosmic and collective expression of the several centuries of this country we call home.

His nickname is “The Gipper”, and is played by former President Ronald “The Gipper” Reagan in a stunning return from the dead for one last head-shaking performance.

Rebekah: Isaac’s wife. Beautiful, rich and manipulative. She’s the mother of Isaac’s twins, but she prefers Jacob, the younger one.

She symbolizes our Constitution, our Capitalist system and it’s expression through the media (the left-wing media if it makes you feel better) in all it’s glory.

Her nickname is the “Material Girl” and is played by the original Material Girl – Madonna.

God’s Broth – or – the Blessing

Because of the mystical and symbolic nature of the rest of this story, I’m going to have to call in Professor Yarnhead to give us an understanding of the ingredients that have gone into making this broth.

Professor Yarnhead is a self-proclaimed specialist in the field of interpretive Biblical prophecy – always a recession-proof industry.

He is going to try and take us back through the grains of the sands of time…

Visuals: Still images, old-fashioned illustrations and archival clip art floats across the screen here to invoke the feeling of history and antiquity – Otherwise known as “The History Channel Collage Style.”

Professor Yarnhead begins:

It was the time of the Patriarchs, a mysterious time when Man was socially evolving from tribes to nations.

El-Shaddai – also known as God Almighty, had called a descendant from the line of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah, to come out from his family, out from his tribe and lands… and out of this one man, He, El-Shaddai, God Almighty would prepare and bring about the next step for Man.

This man, Abram, followed this call from El-Shaddai and received “The Blessing.”

When Abram received this Blessing, El-Shaddai changed his name to Abraham, which means “Father of Nations” and from this first Patriarch all the nations of the world descended and were blessed.

This Blessing is something we don’t understand anymore, nor do we know the power of El-Shaddai as Abram did…

But this was an earlier time, before many of the mysteries were forgotten, when some people still understood that the Blessing is everything.

This Blessing is not a moral prize which is won by your own virtue. The Blessing of El-Shaddai is the Grand Prize of all the possible prizes in the world, and is a prize of faith.

El-Shaddai gave the Blessing to Abraham because he believed God, and so he also became the Patriarch of western religion and faith.

Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

Ishmael was born first, but from Abraham’s wife’s maid Hagar (they did that kind of stuff back then), because Abraham was having trouble waiting for God to get around to doing what he promised to do – give him a son.

Thirteen years later, Sarah, Abraham’s wife got pregnant, and had the Son of Promise – Isaac.

Note: Ishmael and the results of this situation launches a whole other subject that’s too big to go into here…

It was during a traumatic camping trip when Isaac was young that he nearly got sacrificed to El-Shaddai by his father, Abraham, only to be saved by the intervention of an angel from God that pointed out a ram caught in the nearby bushes.

They sacrificed the ram instead, and made some stew… and that stew stuck with Isaac.

Years later, when Isaac had grown, Abraham decided that his son needed a wife, but not one of the local Canaanite girls…

History Flash: Canaanite Women Bad: In the Noah blessing sweepstakes (Genesis 9:25-27), Canaan was the loser, Japheth comes in second and Shem grabs the big prize blessing.

So Abraham sent his most trusted servant back to the birthplace of civilization, Mesopotamia, to find a suitable wife for Isaac from among his relatives. [See Genesis 24]

Setting:Professor Yarnhead fades out…

Well, I think I’ll let this stew simmer overnight and add some more ingredients tomorrow, stir it some more…

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2: Journey to Mesopotamia, The Twins, and more…

Idea’s have been collecting in my mind like drops of water collecting in rain clouds… for days now I’ve been waiting for the rain.

Since Wednesday I’ve been wanting to start blogging again but it’s been like a low pressure front keeping me low, sleeping, dreaming, reading, held down with my mind flying away like a kite on the wind looking over the broad landscape…

Like the wind ready to bring on a storm my mind has tumbled around, round and round with all the debris I’ve collected…

STEW – A little something I’ve been cooking up to help feed us as we head into the election and through to the other side… it’s a little bit politics and a little bit Reformation 2.0 – It’s today’s headlines ripped straight from the pages of The Bible, or pages of The Bible ripped straight from today’s headlines… or something like that. It’s the end of the Bushworld as we know it, thank God!

I’ll give you a little clue before we get started; if you want to get a jump on the story, get out your Bible and do a little reading and thinking: Genesis 25-27, read before the story and after to get a bigger picture.

Soon we’ll be entering the land of imagery and symbols, people types, Biblical events that hint at today’s events and the other devices of the poets and mystics… if you have the eyes to read with, come along.

about onehumanbeing.com

This website is designed, built and maintained by Jon, onehumanbeing.

onehumanbeing.com was established in 2008 as a way to initiate a new season of art for myself.

It is a super-project that launched a number of different sub-projects that have come and, mostly, gone (into my digital portfolio) such as redbotlovesyou.com, The Philip K. Dick Reading Club, The Turning, The MMJ Project, The MMJ Lists, The All-Seeing Eyebama, and UFOverdriver.

Most of this work has been done as Jungian experiments to explore the use of consciousness and the collective conscious as both subject matter and as an art material.